


Help Me

by Anobii1992



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Family, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:14:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anobii1992/pseuds/Anobii1992
Summary: Set after the events of Resolution. In which Ryan calls the Doctor out on why she looks like she's going to let his Dad be dragged into the Supernova.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	Help Me

**Author's Note:**

> I know that at this time The Doctor believes Gallifrey to be safe in the pocket universe but that didn't fit with my story and I'm writing it so in this fic, that never happened.

“Help him.” Ryan begged.

“Trust me” replied the Doctor and without taking her eyes off of Aaron she lifted the lever to her left.

“Finally, my mission is complete. The earth and the Doctor will submit before the Dalek fleet.” The Dalek forced Aaron to turn round and the Doctor shifted anxiously on her feet before flicking another lever and opening the doors to the Tardis.

“Doctor what’re you doing!” shouted Ryan, panicked as a blinding light filled the console room.

“Sorry did I not mention? No fleet. Only a sun going supernova with a squid sized vacuum corridor about to pull you out into space.” Her voice was made of steel and her eyes didn’t even hint at emotion as the Dalek squid attached to Aaron screamed.

“Dad!” yelled Ryan, a look of utter terror on his face.

“You’re too weak Dalek. You can’t hold on!”

“Except it is holding on Doctor!” pointed out Graham, always one for stating the obvious.

“Alright Graham!” she said, annoyed. “Aaaahhh the vacuum corridor’s expanding. I can’t control it.” She was pulling at various knobs and dials now. “It’s going to take Aaron with it!”

There was a small explosion from the console and the Doctor shouted again.

“Everybody hold on!”

The pull from the vacuum corridor was strong and the Doctor grabbed the console for support while Graham clung onto a pillar. Aaron who was in the middle of the room had nothing to grab and both he and the Dalek were pulled closer and closer to the open doors. Aaron grabbed the doorframe, desperately trying to cling on.

“Dad! Doctor you’ve got to help him!”

She didn’t move from the console.

Tearing himself from where he was (relatively) safely clutching a pillar Ryan moved forward, holding onto anything he could for safety.

“Ryan!” screamed Yaz from her place beside the Doctor, also clinging onto the console.

“Dad. Dad, I know you can hear me.”

Aaron let out a menacing growl, lifting his eyes to meet Ryan’s. “He is mine now.”

“No he’s not. He’s mine!” Ryan had made it to the door and was holding on desperately as he reached out for Aaron’s hand.

“Dad! Dad, I’m here for you. I forgive you. I love you Dad. Take my hand!”

The Doctor remained where she was, holding onto the console, watching the scene unfold in front of her. Not interfering and not helping.

Finally, finally Aaron reached out a tentative hand towards Ryan. Ryan grabbed it tightly and braced against the door he heaved at his dad, pulling him to safety, away from the vacuum corridor.

“Leave my dad alone!” he cried, embracing Aaron tightly as the Dalek was pulled off his back and out into the vacuum of space, screaming towards the supernova.

The Doctor flicked a switch and the doors slammed shut instantly. Ryan fell back, Aaron landing on top of him

“We’ve got you” Ryan reassured his dad as much as himself, rolling off of him and onto the floor. The Doctor followed by Graham and Yaz, ran towards him looking delighted.

“Not bad for a kid with dyspraxia, right?”

“Not bad at all!” beamed the Doctor, offering him a hand and hauling him to his feet, surprisingly strong for a woman who was so tiny.

It was only later when Aaron, Mitch and Lin had been dropped off safely and the fam were sitting in the kitchen over cups of tea that Ryan let himself think about the nagging doubts that had been running through his head since the afternoons events had unfolded.

“Doctor, if I hadn’t managed to grab Dad’s hand, would you have let him be pulled out of the TARDIS?” he asked.

The Doctor froze, looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

She slowly lifted her head to meet Ryan’s gaze.

“Yes. I would have. If it got rid of the Daleks forever, I would have let them take Aaron.”

It wasn’t the answer Ryan had been expecting and he felt an inexplicable rage flow through him, finding he was on his feet without consciously standing up.

“How could you say that? How could you even think it?”

“Ryan you have no idea what the Daleks have done. If I let that thing live it could conquer the earth on its own.”

“He’s my Dad!” bellowed Ryan. He was using his tall stature to his full advantage as he leaned threateningly over the Doctor who was still seated.

“I have lost everything. My mums dead. Nan’s dead because of you. I have no family left and you think you can just sit there and tell me that you would throw my dad into a supernova?” he roared. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

Ryan had stopped shouting but his tone was dangerously quiet. “You wouldn’t understand. You don’t have a family. You don’t know how to let people in. How to love people or build a lasting relationship. Always swanning off to the next disaster where you can be the hero but never sticking around to deal with the messes you’ve created.”

Ryan threw his mug across the room, ignoring the TARDIS’s unhappy beeps and stormed from the kitchen leaving a stunned silence in his wake. The Doctor looked like she had been slapped across the face.

For a minute nobody moved. Then the Doctor quietly excused herself and left the room. It broke the spell and Yaz forced herself to move and clean up the mess Ryan had created. She felt sick to her stomach. The Doctor may not be have been particularly open about her past but Yaz had always been perceptive and her police training had only enhanced that skill.

She saw the pain in the Doctor’s eyes when they asked about anything that strayed too close to her home or her family. She saw the longing look in her eyes when Yaz went home and was greeted by an embrace by her parents or when Graham did something in his Grandad role for Ryan.

Yaz and Graham cleaned up the mess slowly, deliberately not looking at each other.

“Shall I go talk to Ryan and you can find the Doc?” Graham asked eventually. Yaz nodded silently in assent and Graham headed straight to Ryan’s room.

He knocked lightly on the door and let himself in. Ryan was sitting on the bed, his back against the wall and his feet sticking out in front of him. He had his gaming controller in his hand but the TV wasn’t on.

“You alright son?”

“I’m not your son” he muttered. Graham chose to ignore that remark.

“I don’t really know what to say to you right now Ryan. If your Nan were here she would be so mad at you.”

“Yeah? Well she isn’t. The only family I have is my Dad. I know he’s useless but at least he’s alive. Puts him head and shoulders above anyone else. And she would just let him die and not even try to save him?”

Graham tried not to dwell on how much that remark hurt. He thought of Ryan, and Yaz come to that, as his grandkids. The Doc was a bit old to be a grandkid but she was his family too. He thought the past year travelling together had finally thawed things between them.

“She would never just let someone die Ryan. Especially not someone as important to you as your dad. You saw how scared she was, I don’t think she even touched on what those Dalek things can do.”

“I didn’t mean what I said Graham.”

“I know you didn’t son.”

“I should never have said what I said. She’s thousands of years old, she must have lost before.”

“You know she has. Remember sitting outside the house after your Nan’s funeral? She said she had no family, had lost them a long time ago. She never did tell us how.”

“I should go and apologise.”

“I think that would be wise. She looked really upset. Think you might have hit a sore spot.”

Yaz was having less luck finding the Doctor. She had been wandering the corridors for ages looking for her, having searched the console room, her workshop, the rainforest and the swimming pool already. Wherever the Doctor was, she seemed to be hiding.

Yaz lifted her eyes, to speak directly to the TARDIS the way the Doctor often did, feeling more than a little foolish. “Please TARDIS, help me find her. She’s hurting and I want to help her.”

There was a soft answering beep and whirring sound and a door appeared from nowhere just down the corridor. Yaz let herself into the room, gasping slightly at the sight that met her eyes.

She was in a library, more magnificent than any she had ever seen, it reminded her of the one from the Beast’s castle in Beauty and the Beast though even more majestic and magical with books in more languages than Yaz had ever seen.

It was several stories high with balconies surrounding and snaking around the room. The ceiling appeared to open to the heavens and all over the place were cosy little reading nooks or workspaces. Curious artefacts from alien planets glittered in the light that was coming from the fire on the far wall. Opposite the fire was a large, cosy looking, purple sofa and Yaz could see the Doctor’s blonde head over it’s back. She didn’t turn or acknowledge Yaz’s presence as she moved across the room and sat down beside her.

The Doctor’s eyes were red rimmed though she wasn’t crying as she stared at the dancing flames in front of her.

“This is possibly the single most incredible room I’ve ever been” said Yaz in awe. The barest hint of a smile ghosted across the Doctor’s lips for a moment.

Yaz turned so she was facing her, moving her hand so they were almost but not quite touching. “Doctor are you ok?”

“Fine Yaz. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m sure Ryan didn’t mean it. He was just upset.”

“Oh you’re sure are you? That’s okay then. All forgotten.” Her tone was mocking and unkind, two things Yaz never thought she would associate with the Doctor.

“Doctor what happened with you and the Daleks? What makes it so personal.”

“There was a war. The Time War, between my people and the Daleks. I was a soldier and I fought in it. They were wiping out whole planets, entire galaxies even. I had to make a choice. I could let the war and the destruction continue or I could stop them, remove the Daleks from the face of the earth but take my people with it.”

Yaz couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How was anyone supposed to make such an impossible choice? It was the stuff beyond nightmares.

“I did it. I killed the Daleks. I killed my planet. Every man, woman and child. My family. My friends. All dead because of my decision. But I could almost justify it because the Daleks were gone too and couldn’t destroy anyone else’s lives. But they’re not. Somehow they survived. They always survive while I lose everything.” Her voice was cold and hard as she spoke.

Not a bit of wonder she said it was personal Yaz thought to herself, struggling to wrap her mind around what the Doctor was saying.

“Maybe if the Daleks survived some of your people did too?” Yaz suggested tentatively.

The Doctor snapped her head round to look at Yaz so quickly it was a miracle she didn’t end up with whiplash. “You think I didn’t think of that? You think I didn’t spend decades combing the entire planet for survivors only to find rubble and ash and bone? Everything I knew and everyone I loved obliterated by my hand.”

She was sounding slightly hysterical now and Yaz longed to reach out and touch her but she didn’t think she would be very well received.

The door opened behind them and Ryan stumbled slowly in looking uncomfortable, Graham right behind him.

“Doctor I… I’m sorry. For what I said to you. It was out of line.”

The Doctor continued to stare stonily at the fireplace, ignoring him.

Ryan looked helplessly at Graham, unsure what to do next.

“Doctor…?”

“Get out?” she was calm, controlled.

“Doctor I….”

She stood to attention and for the first time Yaz could see the soldier she had just confessed to being. “I have loved more and lost more than you could ever possibly imagine. I am thousands of years old and I have watched every person I have ever loved die, knowing I couldn’t save them. Don’t you dare insinuate that I don’t know what it’s like.”

The eerie calm that held in her anger was frightening and Ryan visibly recoiled from her.

“Doctor I’m so sorry…”

“Get out Ryan. I don’t want to talk about it. Just get out.”

“Come on son” encouraged Graham, shooting a look at Yaz and gently tugging Ryan’s arm to get him moving. “Give her some space yeah?”

The Doctor stayed where she was frozen to the spot though swaying slightly until the door shut behind the two boys with a soft click. Then she allowed herself to sink down into the depths of the sofa, drawing her knees up under her chest.

Suddenly, she looked older than Yaz could possibly imagine, almost frail, and Yaz could see her wrestling with her emotions that were barely in check.

“Do you want me to leave too?” she asked softly.

The Doctor lifted her head to look at her. “Will you stay with me? Just for a bit?”

The vulnerability in her voice made Yaz want to cry and she reached out and took the Doctor’s ancient hand, squeezing it tightly.

“Of course I will.”


End file.
